


Velocity Is Directed Speed

by electrumqueen



Category: Inheritance Cycle - Paolini
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:10:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrumqueen/pseuds/electrumqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Her name is Maeve.</i> Scenes from a life that never happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Velocity Is Directed Speed

Brom resolutely does not pay attention to the little girl who comes to live with Garrow, the summer he kills Morzan. He does not notice her bright eyes that look like her mother's; he does not cringe at the scar that carves its way down her back, peeking out of her shirts at the back of her neck. He does not notice the way she lights up at the love that Garrow and Roran and Marian show her, does not notice the way the first smiles are shy and uncertain, hesitant like a dog sure it's about to be kicked; does not notice the way they evolve into confident laughter and teasing. He does not hurt for the shadows in her eyes.

  
Her name is Maeve. Selena had told him, once, whispered it into the blankets, the soft darkness between them, like a gift; the name of her daughter, the reason for everything. He had felt something a lot like jealousy shiver up his spine, and then he dismissed it; kissed her again and tried not to taste Morzan on her lips.

  
Maeve is small and careful, shy of strangers and men and bottles; he uses this as the first excuse to avoid her, and later, her movements start to echo Morzan; grace and dark hair, quick smile and sharp temper and he shoves down all the ways she makes him think of her mother (the way she skins her knees on trees, the way she laughs), and says, "your niece is lovely," the one time they're properly introduced. He tells himself that he cannot get close to her and that he must watch her; there is no knowing what Morzan's blood will do.

  
\--

  
He is telling a story, all the men sitting around as they take an afternoon break from the raising of Horst's new house; he finishes, memories still just a little painful as he remembers what it was like, _before_. He wanders off, looking out at the village.

  
Maeve comes up behind him, small and delicate like Morzan never was. She tugs on the bottom of his shirt and says, "Hi."

He turns, kneels so he is the same height as her. She is getting bigger; six years old, and the features are getting stronger; her eyes are like Selena's, but there is a sadness in them that makes Brom think of Morzan. "Hi," he says. "I'm Brom, what's your name?"

  
"Maeve," she says, "I'm Maeve. You tell stories."

  
"Yes," he says, "it's what I do now."

  
She licks her lips. "Will you tell me a story? About what it's like to fly? I keep dreaming, but no one knows what I mean."

  
"All right," he says, charmed a little, "sit with me."

  
\--

  
She is eight when she says, "Why do you spend so much time watching me?" and she looks at him with curious eyes (with her mother's eyes) twining her fingers together in her lap.

  
He shrugs. "What makes you say that?"

  
"What makes you do it?"

  
He sighs. "How much has your uncle told you about your mother?"

  
She sighs back. "As much as you've told me about you. Not much."

  
"That's fair," he says, "do you remember your father?"

  
Her eyes darken; she looks away from him and rubs the back of her neck where he knows a scar must be. "He would be pretty difficult to forget," she says. "I remember that she smelled nice. My mother, I mean. She was warm and she smelled nice. Garrow says her name was Selena?"

  
"We used to be friends," Brom says, half-lying, "and when she got sick, when she trusted you to Garrow, she asked me to watch over you. You were the most important thing in her life, you know; she loved you more than anything, Maeve. She was extraordinary, and I would die before I could break a promise to her."

  
Maeve blinks, swallowing. Her hands clench into fists and Brom has this sudden urge to wrap her into his arms, to protect her from everything the world will throw at her. She's not his little girl, not by blood, but she is the daughter of the woman he loved, and that is enough. "Why does the scar on your hand look like the scar on my father's?" she asks, biting her lip.

  
"Maeve," he says, gently, "save that question for another day, all right? Why don't you let me tell you about the golden dragon in Ilirea, the one that could only breathe smoke."

  
It's a familiar, well-worn tale, but she likes it. "All right," Maeve says, but her eyes are calculating; he knows this is not the last of it, but she is _eight years old_, and he is not going to break her heart, not any more than it's already been broken. "You'll have to tell me someday, though."

  
"I know, sweetheart," he says, ruffling her hair, "believe me, I know."

  
\--

  
She is ten when she comes to him, to his house on the outskirts of the village with her skirts swinging around her knees and her shirt dirty with mud, and says, "I want you to teach me how to fight." There is something clear and calm, strong and calculated in her voice and her eyes.

  
He balances a walking stick that he's thinking of affecting across his lap. "What makes you say that? You're a young lady, Maeve. What do you think your uncle would say?"

  
"Bollocks to what my uncle would say, Brom," she says. "I've been trying to get Roran to help, but he's useless, he won't hit properly. And you know what it's about."

  
"Tell me," he says.

  
The light hits her back, framing her like a silhouette in the doorway. He thinks of her mother, and her father, and it hurts.

  
"My father was Morzan," she says, "First and Last of the Forsworn. He rode a nameless dragon and bore a red sword and killed more people than I have ever met in my life. Someday someone is going to realize that, and on that day I will have to be able to fight. And you should tell me," she adds, "why you and my father both have that silver star on your palms."

  
"Her name was Saphira," Brom says, finally. She is bright enough to catch his meaning, and to come, quickly and gently, across the floor and into his arms.

  
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, "I'm sorry. But I had to know. Will you teach me now?"

  
His grin is wry. "Oh, Maeve. Have I ever denied you anything?"

  
\--

  
Maeve is twelve, quick and brilliant, when he gets the news that Selena's son survived; that there is a boy named Eragon, living in the lands that used to be Morzan's. Something in his heart aches for that boy, but there is nothing he can do; Maeve is here, and she is all he has of Selena.

  
"Roran says I should stop coming by," she says, one night, sitting around his neat table. "He says the villagers talk."

  
"They do," Brom says. "Will you stop?"

  
"Not unless you want me to," she says, and then. "Tell me about my mother. Not just the good things, Brom, everything. I don't want what she could have been; I want what she was like."

  
"All right," Brom says, carefully, pulling up the memory of her face that is never far from his thoughts. "She was beautiful, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Like you, she was slender and quick; her fighting style is what I am teaching you. She had a kind soul, and she was always ready to help those in need. But she was also deadly, Maeve, like a snake; she would turn on those who wronged her, and she was vengeful. She drank too much, sometimes; I'm guessing you remember that from your father, yes? But she would never have done what he did."

  
She sighs. "I only remember faint glimpses of her. I remember that she smiled, when she was with me, and she cried when she left. As did I. I remember my father better." Her voice is rueful. "I wish I could trade."

  
"Believe me," Brom says, "I wish you could too."

  
Ever-mercurial, her eyes flicker across the wall. "Did you love her? Roran says he loves Katrina, but two months ago he loved Selwyn, who came with her father to the fair."

  
"There are different kinds of love," he says, gently. "The kind I had for her was, I think, different, to the way that Roran now loves Katrina. Perhaps in time they will have something approaching what we had."

  
She watches him closely, eyes following the shape of his mouth. "If you loved my mother, why weren't you my father? How do you know?"

  
He wants to hug her, to pull her into his arms and keep her safe. But the world will not leave them be, and he is old. He says, "The same way you know, Maeve," and something in her eyes crumples.

  
"I wish you were my father," she says, "not him. I wish Garrow were my father, anyone else."

  
His heart breaks for her. "I know," he whispers. "I wish that too."

  
\--

  
They fight in the Spine, finding clearings where the sunlight dapples the tree-trunks, when Maeve can be spared from home. Marian is dead, and someone needs to make sure Garrow and Roran stay fed; Elaine tries her best to teach Maeve to cook, but anything more elaborated than slightly-scorched meat is out of her grasp.

  
Maeve steals a pair of Roran's trousers, the slightly dirtier pair, at least; when Roran asks her why she says it is hard to weed in a skirt. She gets better and better at hunting; there is something ruthless about her that ensures that when she goes out to the Spine she comes back with a deer, and Roran and Garrow ask both her and Brom to stop talking to each other.

  
They meet at the Spine, instead; they pick places where people will not come, and Maeve starts to be able to fight Brom to a draw, to match him instead of always losing like she had when she was smaller. She is a tactical thinker, able to improvise on the fly; he says as much to her, with pride in his voice, and her heart swells golden.

  
She sometimes dreams of her father, Morzan with his nameless red dragon and the screams that followed them; sometimes she dreams of her mother, a faint shape, but beautiful. Oftentimes, when she wakes, the scar that runs across her back is twinging.

  
After they spar, Brom sits on a fallen log and Maeve sprawls across the ground, sweat-soaked and exhausted and the cool breeze rushes over them. He talks, telling her about her mother, about her father, about the adventures they used to have; sometimes she thinks he is lying, exaggerating her mother, but there is something in his eyes that tells her he loved Selena too much to remember her different.

  
She tells him her own stories, tells him about the boys in this village and the next who are starting to look at her, about the way the girls think she is strange for not being like they are, about the way the village seems too small and the nightmares that might be memories that make her wake in a cold sweat before the sun has risen. She has a father and his name is Garrow, but Brom is something different, something important; Brom is the best friend she has ever had, and she knows this will be true as long as she lives.

  
One day he tells her that he has a son, that his mother is her mother and that his name is Eragon. She's not sure what that feeling in her chest is; it might be jealousy, or it might just be _hurt_, or some blurring of the two; either way it makes her look away and say, slowly, "where is he?"

  
"Where you used to be," Brom says. "He probably thinks he's Morzan's son." There's heartbreak in his eyes; she's not the only one hurting.

  
"So," she says, shoving down her emotions, "we should go get him, huh."

  
"I don't think we can," Brom says, "it's the most impregnable fortress in Alagaesia, other than Uru'baen."

  
"Give me a couple of years," Maeve says, and her grin is wry.

  
\--

  
There is a sword in the corner of Brom's house, covered in dust and wrapped too tightly to ever see light. Its name is _Zar'roc_; once upon a time it was Morzan's, and Brom is dreading the day that he will have to give it to Maeve, that her inheritance will come back around and bite its own deadly tail. But he knows it will come; he's no Angela, but he was a Rider and magic is in his blood like it's in hers. It doesn't stop him wanting to protect her, wanting to keep the sword from her along with everything else that's ugly in the world; he can't, though, because he loves her too much for that.

  
She is sixteen (and beautiful, so beautiful, like her mother and her father; Roran's been fending off the boys for all he's worth) when she parries his staff, knocks out his knee and ducks and puts her own at his throat. Disbelief in her eyes, she says, "what just happened?"

  
He can't help but grin. "I yield," he says, and she takes her staff back, to her side. "That was well done, but not every warrior you fight will have a bad leg. You need to be quicker."

  
She flushes, taking the praise for what it is, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He'd be nagging her to cut it, were they in a war-situation, but they're not, and soon Garrow will start nagging her to get married. Something about that makes his chest clench; it's too soon, dammit.

  
She sits across from him at his table, later that day, and says, "I think we need to go get your son now. You can teach me magic on the way; you know how to get there, right? Then we should. He's not just your son, he's my half-brother, and Roran's cousin, and--"

  
"You're _sixteen_," he says, "Maeve--"

  
"It's old enough to get married," she says, "why shouldn't it be old enough to save someone?"

  
"Who is it?" he asks.

  
Her eyes shutter. "What do you mean, 'who'?"

  
"The boy you're getting arranged to."

  
"It doesn't matter," she says, "it really doesn't. It's not about that."

  
"I don't believe that for a second," he says, hard-voiced and it hurts to say it because she's the closest thing he's got to family. "Don't run away; you need to fix it, if fixing is what this situation needs."

  
"Fine," she says, mouth set into a firm line. "Fine."

  
The door slams on her way out, and he winces.

  
\--

  
Maeve is still sixteen when a blue egg lands on Brom's doorstep, and it is warm in his arms; he catches his breath at the sight of it, at the sense of it burning familiarly onto his heart. The scar on his hand pulses once, hotly. He lets out a breath, buries it in the corner under the cloth with the sword he doesn't use, and goes out.

  
He knocks once on Garrow's door, says, "I'm sorry to disturb you," when Roran comes to the door; Roran lets out a breath and mutters, "you owe me, both of you," and then disappears.

  
Maeve stands in the doorway, hands at her waist. "What do you want?" she asks, hair gleaming dark from the fire.

  
He can't help but see Selena in every line of her body. He sighs. "About that thing," he says, "you were right. We need to leave."

  
"What," she says, flatly. "Are you serious?"

  
"Get your things," he says, "if we don't get to the Varden, and soon, we're dead."

  
She steps out, into the cool night and puts her hand on his shoulder, leans in to whisper, "what happened?"

  
He shakes his head. "Later. Tell Roran we're going hunting, and we'll be awhile--"

  
"Brom," she says, "this danger. Is it going to trace back here?"

  
"Most certainly," he mutters, feet tapping, "but we have to go."

  
"We have to warn them," she says, "Katrina's pregnant."

  
"Just-- tell them the Empire is coming, then. We have to _leave_, Maeve. I have a dragon egg, which almost certainly means there is an elf who needs rescuing, and a Shade who will have tracked it here--"

  
"Fine," she says, "We need to tell Roran and Garrow. They can get the rest of the village into hiding when we take the egg to the Varden."

  
\--

  
They head out, Maeve on Garrow's old horse, Brom on his own; he pulls his brown up, as soon as they get out of sight of the village. He says, "You'll need a weapon," his heart breaking, and he hands her Zar'roc, still wrapped in sackcloth.

  
She pulls the coverings away. "This is my father's sword," she says, "fuck."

  
"You're not your father," he says, gently. "But you need a sword. I'm old; let's be realistic, you're going to end up doing most of the hand-to-hand."

  
"I know I'm not my father," she says, and she wraps her hand around the hilt. It gleams like it's come home. "It fits too well," she says, and then she shakes her head. "As long as you handle the magic, _old_ _man_. That stuff is too much for my blood."

  
"Deal," he says, the egg humming in his saddle bag. "You ready?"

  
She nods, and they go.

**Author's Note:**

> Genderswap is totally awesome, and I like the idea of a timeline wherein the cast of these books actually use their brains. (Plus Murtagh would be a totally hot girl.)


End file.
